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If anyone knows the answer to this, I bet it'll be you. When Chapters IV-VI were first in theatres, some Star Wars kook told me that nine chapters were planned. Is this so? If it is, what was the subject of Chapters VII-IX to be, and whatever happened to 'em?

Lucas had either written himself or had commissioned through ghost writers (Ala Dean Foster, among others) at least radically three different STAR WARS scripts. Characters, elements, and sub-plots from unused frafts eventually found their way into the films produced later.

When STAR WARS was wrapping up, there was some hope that it would be successful enough to spawn a sequel. The Hollywood rule of thumb being that most sequels only do 30% of the business of the original film, so Lucas comissioned Alan Dean Foster to write a treatment based on props, costumes, and stock shots left over from the first movie, including a full size X-wing. Foster began working on this, but when STAR WARS went through the roof with audiences, his work was shunted aside into the first STAR WARS original novel, "A Splinter of the Mind's Eye."

Lucas originally envisioned a grandiose plane of 15 films: Four sets of trilogies plus on bridging film between each set (this was reported in CINEFANTASTIQUE and elsewhere). As work began on THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, Lucas quickly dropped the bridging films and the fourth trilogy; up through RETURN OF THE JEDI he spoke of doing three sets of trilogies.

JEDI left Lucas physically and emotionally drained (the man does have health problems that have plagued him, and his divorce certainly didn't help his creative mojo); he intimated that perhaps they would be the only STAR WARS features. As time went on and STAR WARS proved a popular franchise, he gradualy began warming up again to doing at least the three "first" films in the trilogy.

Now that they are complete and Lucasfilm is focusing on the TV series, it will be intersting to see if them remain canon or if he will add to them yet again at some point in the future.